Category: Leadership

I just finished read a wonderful article in the American Psychologist called Leaders, Followership, and Evolution, by Mark Van Vugt and his colleagues.  You can get a pdf from Van Gut's website here.  They take an evolutionary perspective, showing — among other things — that leaders in the groups that we evolved from led small face to face groups, which (my interpretation) may help explain why leaders of large organizations fail so often — it isn't something that humans as a species have much experience doing.  The authors also make a compelling case that people who rose to leadership positions in such groups did so because of their ability to serve the needs of followers rather than their ability to intimidate and bully.  Along related lines, they point out that another implication of an evolutionary perspective,is that people who study leaders typically devote too much attention to leaders and not enough to followers. 

I especially like this quote from page 190, which they show is bolstered by quite a bit of research on leadership in modern organizations:

“[G]ood
leaders should be perceived as both competent and benevolent because followers
want leaders who can acquire resources and then are willing to share them.”

This post just scratches the surface.  This is a carefully researched and unusually creative piece on leadership.  If you are interested, I suggest diving in deeper.

"I believe managing is like
holding a dove in your hand. If you hold it too tightly you kill it,
but if you hold it too loosely, you lose it."
Tommy Lasorda

I grew up in the San Francisco area and thus was trained to despise the
Los Angles Dodgers, which Tommy Lasorda coached for years.  But this
little quote from him is brilliant, and applies to management and a lot
of other challenges in life — including parenting.

P.S. Here is where I found the quotes if you want to hear more of Tommy's wisdom.

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."

I love that.  I would add that it is amazing what you can learn when you don't care who gets the blame!

A colleague just sent me this news story:

Joel Podolny is the former Dean of the Yale School of Management. 
Podolny will be joining Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to become the dean and
VP of Apple University.  Podolny worked at Yale for about 3.5 years
before stepping down.

Podolny will be officially leaving his post as dean on November
1st.  Podolny will stick around at Yale until the end of the year to
help transition Sharon M. Oster, a teacher that is stepping up as the
interim Dean.

For the rest of the story, go here.

I was a bit shocked to see the above story about Joel, as I knew him quite well during the 15 years or so he was at Stanford (he then went on to Harvard and later to Yale as dean), and I thought he was a lifetime academic. But people change and, for most us, nothing we do is a life sentence unless we are afraid to change. I knew Joel last when he was an Associate Dean at the Stanford Business School, and he was so much better at that job than anyone I have ever seen in a similar role before or since, it was astounding. He was one of the best bosses that I have ever seen in action in any kind of organization.  He would do things like just wander around the halls and talk to faculty.  I had an office at the business school in those days where I would write and hang out with colleagues like Jeff Pfeffer, Charles O'Reilly, Maggie Neale, but I wasn't one of Joel's "direct reports." My real appointment was and is in the Engineering School, but somehow, Joel would wander in my office a few times a week, ask what I was up to, add his ideas, and always add some encouragement (by contrast, I am not sure that my current direct supervisor has ever been in my office in the engineering school, even after that person has held the job for over 10 years). The amount of affection and respect that Joel's colleagues had for him was something to behold.

One of the main reasons that Joel was so well loved at Stanford is that he is such a great listener and his approach is to listen carefully to what a person needs. It is never about him, and he automatically makes decisions and expresses emotions that are in the best interest of the person in front of him and the institution that he is leading.   As a small anecdote about him, and one that shows his wisdom, Joel described to me how he responded when a Stanford faculty member came into his office, threatened to move to another university, and asked for a raise.  Joel told me something like, "I always get to the money eventually, but my theory is that when a faculty member is talking about leaving, a big part of it is always that they don't feel sufficiently loved and appreciated, so I start out by telling them how much I love and appreciate them and all the ways that their colleagues appreciate them and respect them.  And then after we work through that, I turn to the money.  It nearly always turns out that the love and appreciation issue is bigger than the money."  I thought that was brilliant and a lesson that bosses is hundreds of occupations can benefit from.

Joel is also someone who is willing to do very creative things….. I won't give you a full list, but as one example, when he was an associate dean at Stanford, he was one of the executive producers of a film about Stanford's James March, a renowned organizational theorist. It is was called Passion and Discipline: Don Quixote's Lessons
for Leadership.  And it was Joel's idea to do the film, and he worked with Jim to come up with a concept Jim liked, and then to raise funds and make it happen.  Not your usual academic project!

Apple is lucky to have Joel.  He is as fine a human being as I have met in academia and the rare wise, compassionate, and action-oriented leader.  I suspect that this means he will be moving back to California, which would be nice as I may get to see him now and then.

I am continuing to read about leadership, and as I think happens to everyone who goes on this journey, I am reading stuff on Abraham Lincoln. I enjoyed Lincoln on Leadership by Donald T. Phillips (although I am always wary when people are presented as too perfect, as this book does).  I was especially struck with Lincoln's perspective, quoted above, that we all would be better-off if we each worked to "Touch people with the better angels of your nature."  Between the financial meltdowns and being in the final month of heated election, there is a lot nastiness out there, and it seems like an especially good time to heed Abe's advice.

P.S. I looked around, and the phrase "the better angels of our nature" are the closing words of Lincoln's first inaugural address. You can read the full text here, and as you can see, this was meant as a part of an attempt to avert Southern succession and the civil war.  But regardless of context, I think it is excellent advice. Nastiness sometimes leads to short-term wins, but the long-term costs are usually horrible.

The first of my "15 beliefs Things I Believe" listed to the left of this post is "Sometimes The Best Management is No Management at All." I was reminded of it by Sandy's comment on my last post.  Sandy asked "I wonder what we can tell to
leaders about how to be less intimidating, even when their influence on
subordinates is unintentional?"  A damn good question, and one answer — and I would love to hear others — is that sometimes the best thing a person that high status leaders can do is to physically remove themselves from the setting so that their mere presence doesn't stifle the thinking and suggestions in a group of otherwise similar-status peers. 

Two examples come to mind quickly.  First, and most famously, was what happened in October of 1962 when President John F. Kennedy's advisers were debating about what to do about the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union was taking steps to place missiles topped with nuclear weapons just 90 miles from Florida.  Kennedy not only gathered experts with diverse opinions and knowledge and encouraged them to express their opinion. As Irving Janis reports in his writings on Groupthink, at one point, Kennedy divided the larger group (pictured above) into multiple sub-groups and asked each to develop solutions — in order to avoid excessive and premature consensus. Kennedy also reduced the potentially stifling effects of his status as president by being deliberately absent from
these subgroup meetings,  Although historians and psychologists continue to debate how important such measures to avoid groupthink were for producing the decisions that ultimately defused the crisis, I think that the more general lesson holds: sometimes the best way for a leader to reduce undue influence is to leave the room or avoid going to meetings where his or her presence will dampen frank discussion and deep examination of facts.

David Kelley, (see the TED talk on the link)founder and chairman of IDEO (where I am a fellow) has impressed me with his ability to get "lead by getting out of the way" for years.  I have been to many meetings were David was careful to avoid saying too much or expressing a strong opinion in the meeting.  And he has this habit that, when he thinks things in a meeting at IDEO are really starting to go well, he kind of gently slinks to the back of the room to reduce his impact.  And he often quietly leaves the scene.  When his opinion and authority is required, David doesn't hesitate to interject.  But I've always been impressed with how sensitive David is to the power of his position (and reputation as one of the most creative people on the U.S. business science), and like Kennedy did so brilliantly, understands the power of leading by getting out of the way.

Again, this is just one perspective on how people with high status can take actions to avoid stifling the ideas and suggesions generated by those who don't have as much power and prestige.  I would love to hear others.

I spent a couple hours catching up with Diego of Metacool fame the other week. We talked about a lot of different things. One of them was Up the Organization, a classic business book by Robert Townsend who, among other things, was the CEO of Avis.   Diego commented that it was a great book, a series of brilliant blog posts written decades before anyone had ever heard of a blog.  I also noticed that Mozilla CEO John Lilly put in a plug for the book on his blog too.

 I bought the book (I actually never had read it), and I am just stunned with his boldness and wisdom.   There is new commemorative edition out, with some great little essays in the forward, including one by the Warren Bennis (who I have been blogging about a bit). But the text of Up the Organization is what is really something.  Tom Peters' blurb says that the book shouldn't just be read, it should be memorized, and he has a point.  A sample of tidbits to whet your appetite:

"If you have to have a policy manual, publish the Ten Commandments"

He advises CEOs to get rid of their PR departments and all their PR consultants too.

"Fire the whole personnel department."

On conviction vs. ego: 'Before you commit yourself to a new effort, it's worth asking yourself a couple questions: "Are we really trying to do something worthwhile here?"  "Or are we just building another monument to our diseased ego?"

You won't agree with everything; I didn't. But I once you start reading it, I bet you can't stop. It is as irreverent, creative, and fun as any business book I have ever read. 

My post on Michael Maccoby's definition of leaders as "someone that people follow" generated a lot of discussion, including a comment for Maccoby himself that, in The Leaders We Need, "I go one to raise the difficult
questions: Why is this person being followed? How is this person being
followed? Where is the leader taking followers? The best leaders are
working for the common good and not personal power. However, as I point
out, the ability to engage followers depends on understanding those
followers, something theories of leadership often ignore."  To reinforce the point, he does a splendid of addressing this tough question in the book.

I was especially taken with the wisdom of his next comment, on the "managing vs. leading" post that followed a few days later. Professor Maccoby pointed out that:

"Bob- Your point about successful business visionaries having deep knowledge about their products fits my experience. However, I think we should differentiate leadership which always involves a relationship as contrasted with management which has to do with processes and systems. Yes, leaders should understand management. However, management doesn't always need a manager. I have worked with factories where management is done by teams. Furthermore, you find different kinds of leaders in knowledge organizations today– strategic, operational, networking–and they have different styles and qualities. We should no longer be thinking about the leader, but rather an effective interactive leadership system that includes strategy, implementation and facilitation. This can't be achieved by management alone at a time of constant change when people need inspiration, a sense of purpose and enthusiasm to achieve their goals."

I love this comment because of that key phrase "management doesn't always need a manager," indeed, as Maccoby suggests, the management function can be replaced by everything from self-managing teams to rules that are embedded in an enterprise software system.  But leadership implies a level of interaction and wisdom that is not so easily replaced. Nice point, and I thank Michael for join the conversation, as he has studied and worked with leaders for decades.  In addition to "The Leaders We Need,"  I would also recommend his wonderful Harvard Business Review article on Narcissistic Leaders (which you can read here at his website) and his 2007 book in such leaders.  Finally, I first read heard of Maccoby's work on leadership when I was a graduate student, one of my classmates gave me a copy of his classic bestseller The Gamesman. It appears to be out of print, but is definitely worth tracking down. If you are interested here is a 1977 Time Magazine story about it.

Michael, thanks for taking time to comment and for all your great stuff on leadership.

As my recent blog posts suggests, I've been reading a lot about leadership lately.  The last time I reviewed that literature was about four years ago when Jeff Pfeffer and I were writing Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense.  It is impossible to read it all.  Tens of thousands of books have been written on the subject and there are several academic journals devoted entirely to the subject, including The Leadership Quarterly and The Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies.  Perhaps the most definitive review and integration of the leadership literature was Bass and Stogdill's 1200 page Handbook of Leadership, which was published in 1990 (and still does the best job of making sense of the literature, for my money). But if you really want a long book on leadership, you can get the four volume Encyclopedia of Leadership, which is 2120 pages long, weighs about 15 pounds, and costs a whopping $640 on Amazon!  So the task of reviewing the leadership literature — and acting on it as leader — isn't to understand it all (that is impossible), but to develop a point of view on a few themes that matter most.

As I have been reading these writings and research again, I have been bumping into an old and popular distinction that has always bugged me: leading versus managing. The brilliant and charming Warren Bennis has likely done more to popularize this distinction. He wrote in Learning to
Lead: A Workbook on Becoming a Leader that  "There is a
profound difference between management and leadership, and both are important. To manage
means to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for, to conduct.
Leading is influencing, guiding in a direction, course, action, opinion. The distinction
is crucial". And in one his most famous lines, he added,  "Managers are people
who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing."

I am not much rejecting the distinction between leadership and management, but I am saying that the best leaders do something that might be most properly called a mix of leadership and management (a great example is HP CEO Mark Hurd) , or at least, lead in a way that constantly takes into account the importance of management.   And some of the worst senior executives use the distinction between
leadership and management as an excuse to avoid learning the details
they need to understand the big picture and to select the right strategies. 

In Bennis speak, I guess I am saying: To do the right thing, a leader needs to understand what it takes to do things right."

There is an amazing story unfolding in Canada, which has received
remarkably little play in the United States (I suspect because of the
election madness). An outbreak of listeria linked to a Maple Leaf
meatpacking plant in Canada killed at least 11 people in August and made many others extremely ill. You might think that such a
horrible thing would lead to widespread anger against the company and
to the certain demise of Maple Leaf.  But — at least so far — both
the reputation of the company and its CEO, Michael McCain have remained
intact because McCain has so openly accepted blame for the deaths (see
this article and this one
), spoken so clearly about why they happened, and the difficulties of
repairing the problem. And he has done so in way the conveys genuine
compassion — and personal pain and guilt as well. 

Anyone interesting in how to lead during a crisis can learn something
from this horrible tragedy.  The CEO's grace and unminced words have
impressed many in Canada, and I expect this case will take a place
next to Johnson & Johnson's famous response to the Tylenol
poisonings in the 1980s.  In fact, the Canadian press is already making
the comparison here.

Of course, this story isn't over yet, and it is impossible to predict what new facts may emerge. But so far CEO McCain is doing one of the hardest things that any CEO can do, and doing so with grace, and without pointing fingers at others. 

P.S. Here are a few snippets from YouTube of his speech, including this one;
I am looking for a longer version, as when I heard his speech and Q
& A on the CBC, I was touched and impressed with demeanor and grasp
of the facts.  Also, the Maple Leaf website provides impressive no-nonsense information as well.